Civil rights icon John Lewis' to appear at UIS as part of campuswide reading program

By Chris Dettro, Staff Writer

Sunday

Aug 30, 2015 at 10:00 PM

An appearance by civil rights icon John Lewis, now a U.S. congressman, will highlight events related to the University of Illinois Springfield's "One Book, One UIS" community read for 2015-16.

The graphic memoir "March," written by Lewis and Andrew Aydin and illustrated by Nate Powell, tells Lewis' life story as a civil rights activist and leader. The book is a trilogy, with the third part yet to be published.

Jane Treadwell, UIS librarian and dean of library instructional services, said the book selection committee considered whether a graphic novel would have as much appeal as a traditional book to the campus community.

"Undergraduates already have been exposed, and they like that format," Treadwell said. "We decided that because of the subject matter, it would work."

She said the book fit the criteria used in selecting the book to be featured.

"It is an exemplar of the civic engagement that we hope our students will have," she said, noting the "Leadership Lived" brand that UIS has adopted over the past few years. "We felt John Lewis' life is a great example of that."

Lewis, a member of the U.S. House since 1986 and the dean of Georgia's congressional delegation, was born to sharecropper parents in Pike County, Alabama. He became a civil rights activist while a student at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, organizing sit-ins and participating in freedom rides.

From 1963 to 1966, he was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, of which he was a founder.

Lewis was one of the organizers of the March 7, 1965, march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, which attracted national attention when Alabama state troopers attacked the nonviolent marchers. The march is considered a seminal moment in the civil rights movement and a major factor in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

"For many of our students, the events of civil rights movement are as foreign as World War II was to some of us when we were children," Treadwell said. "Many of them don't know the details because they didn't live through it."

The UIS community read includes the first two books in the planned trilogy. The second book ends with the Sept. 15, 1963, bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Four girls were killed and many others injured at the predominantly black church that was attended by civil rights leaders.

Treadwell said 14 UIS instructors have adopted the book for their classes, and four different reading groups have been established on campus.

This is the second official One Book, One UIS initiative. The first was in 2013 with "Behind the Beautiful Forevers," a book by Katherine Boo about interconnected lives in a Mumbai, India, slum.

Unofficially, a 2010 book by Rebecca Skloot, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," about the immortal cell line known as HeLa that came from Lacks' cancer cells, was a UIS community read, Treadwell said.

"Every time we do this, we have more events," she said.

The highlight of the "March" initiative is an Oct. 19 appearance by Lewis, Aydin and Powell at UIS. Tickets for the 7 p.m. event, which are free, are available Monday through the Sangamon Auditorium ticket office. The event is supported in part by Illinois Humanities and the Field Foundation of Illinois.

Aydin currently handles telecommunications and technology policy and new media in Lewis' Washington office. He was communications director and press secretary during Lewis' 2008 and 2010 re-election campaigns.

"I am deeply grateful to Andrew Aydin," Lewis said of his co-author in the book's acknowledgements. "He had a vision, and he never gave up."

Powell is a best-selling graphic artist whose work includes the critically acclaimed "Any Empire," "Swallow Me Whole," "The Year of the Beasts" and others. He also drew the graphic novel adaptation of Rick Riordan's best-seller "Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Hero."

More information on the community read and the Oct. 19 event is available at onebookoneuis.com.

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One Book, One UIS

Some of the other events planned in connection with the University of Illinois Springfield's One Book, One UIS project, featuring the graphic memoir "March":

* Sept. 8: "The Charleston Massacre and the History of Racial Violence in America: A Panel Discussion," 6 p.m., Brookens Auditorium, UIS.

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